My eyes close and I’m 17 and living in Missouri. Good old Joplin, MO, year 2000. The year of Y2K, of doomed nations and great nation hysteria. Oh, the irony. As dead asleep as I am, I feel the corners of my mouth being pulled into a wiry smile. My diaphragm constricts, forcing air to bypass my quivering vocal cords. The half dreamed chuckle echo’s off the walls of my inner ear, a noise that would awaken me most nights. Survival instincts are a bothersome thing at times, almost insuppressible. Almost.

I never wake up during the dream, but once it takes me, I never wish to be woken. The human psyche is truly a spell-binding force. A force rarely comprehended, and never, never understood.

The night is hot and muggy, extremely dry compared to the ocean drenched air I now reside in, but in the dream, I’ve never experienced the air of the tropics. The moon is full and illuminates the landscape in ways the sun could never dream of. I raise my eyes to it, meeting its tireless gaze with look of deep longing. The rays stain my vision as an ecstacy ravages my mind, body and soul. Lost in the moment, I suddenly become self-aware of my utter helplessness. I’m panicking. My muscles tense, then shake. It has me, I’m frozen in its gaze, but one reassuring glance from the night shakes away all fear. How could it hold anything but good-will towards me? I give into the utter joy I’ve never known before.

Suddenly there is no moon. The ecstacy dissipates, and I am left alone again. A new panic grips my soul. How could my love ever leave me? Again I gaze towards the heavens, but my love is gone. Will I ever know love again? Adrenaline floods my veins at the very thought. No. I must reclaim my love! I must find the night!

I leap into a dead run, and blind as true love, I burst through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor of my current residence. Twisting, turning, sliding in between the broken shards of glass I fall. My feet hit the ground with a shock that leaves the neighbors staring. A small bone in my foot reports a fracture with an audible crack, yet I feel no pain, only the determination to worship the night once more.

Headlong, I dash into the darkness. Like a deer I leap over fences and run blindly across roads. There is no reason to my madness. I’m not even sure which way to go, but if I don’t find it soon, the moon may never shine its light on me like that again. Branches slap me for my foolishness. Rocks and gopher holes send me sprawling head over heals. Recovering nearly as soon as my body hits the ground, I continue my pursuit.

My fingers are sticking together. I must have cut my arm. Suddenly I have no sight in my left eye. Instinctively, I brush at it. My hand becomes warm and wet as I realize I have a serious injury just above my eyebrow. My wound must mend itself, for I must find the night.

Time turned timeless. I ran until muscles exploded and my heart pumped battery acid, and then I ran some more. I notice there are no longer city lights to light my way, no cars, no houses, not even so much as a path for me to follow. All I can see that was once familiar are the stars. The ground falls out beneath me. I’m falling again. Nothing but air surrounds me. The earth appears just before impact. There is a gut wrenching series of snaps as both my legs shatter. Pain now visits me. The agony of my loss as well as my injuries is almost too much to bare, but I know I must keep going.

I pull myself into a clearing 50 feet from the base of the cliff. In the centerI see a lone bolder, standing tall and flat like a table. At last, I have arrived. The pain is blinding, but I haven’t used my sight very much this entire journey, so crawling the 20 more yards is no problem, unlike the task of mounting the rock. With bleeding raw hands I claw my way to the top and roll myself over to look at the sky once more. I lay there, broken and mangled, but for all my sacrifice there is no moon and I begin to weep.

But as my tears wet the stone, I feel a hand rest on my bruised chest. Literally shaking the tears from my eyes, I sit up and stare in awe at my goddess incarnate. Outlined in charcoal black, those eyes make me forget my broken legs, my shattered foot, even the nasty gash that blinds my left eye disappears. Her aura entraps me like only the moon could.

Her face shines with the brilliance that lights the landscape, her eyes are huge and compassionate. Her figure is small, though her bosom is full. Her hair is waist length, straight, yet unkept. It’s gray like the night storm, and I can even see small flashes of lightning flicker deep within. Imagined thunder rolls through my brain.

She wears the milky way around her like a shawl and appears no older than 18. Her legs, naked up to the thigh, hang breezily off one side of the table. Her sacredness is scandalously hidden by the bottom corner of her shawl, yet she seems unaware as she stares from my eyes to my wounds. I can see deep compassion in her eyes as she leans over me. Her mouth opens, but produces only thought.

"This will never do."

In a flash the hand that she so gracefully rested on my chest now gripped the handle of stone knife buried deep inside me. A cry of surprise forces its way past the cold stone that blocks most of my windpipe. The instrument of my demise disappeared as quickly as appeared, but its affects do not. The chasm left in my chest suddenly remembers it’s duty. My life blood spills directly from my heart to the alter on which I lay. My sense of gravity diminishes as does the pain in my legs. I blink, and realize that I am now standing by my love, staring at the broken vessel that was me. I watched it continue to bleed even though the soul has obviously left it.

Her head turns to me.

"We must replace this old trash." She stops to ponder. "I will give you something not so weak, something that will hold you through until we meet again."

A gesture of the hand, a flick of a finger, and into the clearing roams a great, grey wolf. It’s gray coat blending magnificently with in the moonlight, the wolf saunters up. "It will never do to have you as a mindless beast," the words sing-song from her lips. "We must improve!"

Immediately, the wolf leaps onto the alter and devours my old corpse in a matter of seconds. After all that remains is blood, the wolf falls over as if dead.

I stare from the odd spectacle to the goddess. "What just happened?" I ask. She just smiles and places her hands over my eyes.

I’m back on the alter looking up at my goddess. As I sit up, I notice that none of my wounds exist. I feel stronger, quicker, deadly muscles under my human flesh. She holds up a mirror and giggles. "Do you like my work? I took a few creative liberties I hope you’ll enjoy."

My features in the reflection appear to be no different than before, yet they seem a bit sharper, crisper, almost more defined. New senses flood my brain. I feel amazingly alert to every detail around me. The night explodes with details formerly hidden to me by my human eyes. I can smell a caribou splashing two miles upstream!

Though I looked every bit human, I feel every bit wolf. My strength and speed have increased, as well as my hunger. The goddess giggles again. I stared back into the mirror. My hair was different. I no longer had nondescript brown, wavy hair. It was gray and straight, like that of a wolf’s. My eyes were green now, no longer hazel. Through vertical slits I now viewed my surroundings. I looked up to realize that my goddess had left the mirror hanging in midair and was retiring to the edge of the forest. I felt a stab of longing and was instantly by her side.

"How am I to make peace with this? I am not wolf." I pleaded, reaching for anything to stay in her presence for longer.

"You will learn in time," she laughed, "The spirit of the wolf who’s body you commandeered will guide you."

"Let me come with you." I again pleaded with her.

"You cannot follow where I go."she smiled. "But if you wish it, I can give you my song."

And that is when I wake.